The Legend of Broken (90 page)

Yes, clever,
Caliphestros had thought, as he had struggled to stay astride Stasi’s powerful neck and shoulders:
almost perversely clever, just as Saylal himself has always been …

When the pair arrive at the entryway to the stadium, Caliphestros breathes easier for a moment, as Stasi pauses for the first time: the structure’s portcullis—an almost insignificant (by any military standard) expanse of crosshatched boards that serves as more of a warning than a true barrier—has been shut, for the first time that Caliphestros can ever recall its having been. But, while the grating may itself be less than impressive, it has been fastened at its base with a prodigious iron chain and equally impressive lock to an iron loop that was long ago sunk into the granite of the mountain. A smaller chain has been strung through a section of the crosshatching some five feet up from the base, and its two ends are fixed to a large slab of wood that bears Lord Baster-kin’s command that the Stadium will remain closed until the young men of Broken have bested the Bane.

Staring at the lock upon the ground and recognizing its basic mechanism, Caliphestros begins to rummage through one of the small sacks that he has kept slung over his shoulders.

“Fear not, Stasi,” he announces. “I have a set of tools that will allow us, eventually, to—”

Just what his devices will allow him to do is never announced: for Stasi, evidently, knows the sound of her companion’s rummaging and studious voice, and decides that she will settle the matter of the portcullis herself. Before Caliphestros can coherently object, the panther takes several long strides backward and, lowering her head so that the thick bone of her forehead faces the entryway, begins a hard run that makes her intention unmistakable.

“Stasi—!”
her rider scarcely has time to call out, before realizing that nothing he will say can prevent her attempt. With this in mind, he lowers his seating and increases his hold, closing his eyes as he does. Almost before he can comprehend what has taken place, he hears an enormous sound of shattering wood, of which only harmless pieces fall upon his back, so quickly is the white panther continuing to move. Once inside the gateway, Stasi pauses to look back with satisfaction at her work: a gaping hole in the portcullis to one side of the intact chain and lock, and an impact so extreme that the largest pieces of wood that have been blasted away are only now settling to the ground. Smiling and smoothing the fur upon the panther’s neck with one hand as he rubs her forehead with the other, Caliphestros determines: “You were right, my girl—a far superior plan. On, then!”

And, understanding his words entirely, Stasi turns, seeming to know her way about the Stadium (although it is scent alone that is driving her, Caliphestros knows), and makes for the doorway that leads to the dark stairway that winds down to the cages beneath the sands of the arena.

Only here do the travelers finally encounter a human presence: one of the keepers of the beasts in the iron cells. He is a filthy man in equally dirty clothing; and despite the fact that he holds a spear before him, he beholds the approach of the white panther and her rider by torchlight with both amazement and an appreciative awe.

“Kafra be damned,” he says, throwing his spear aside. “I will not stand in the way of such wondrous determination, to say nothing of a sight that defies all that the priests have taught us.”

“A wise decision,” Caliphestros answers. “But where are the other men who work with you in this”—The old man glances about—“this little piece of
Hel
?”

“Gone,” the man answers. “As soon as Lord Baster-kin ordered the Stadium locked and abandoned, my lord Caliphestros.”

“So you know me,” the legless rider muses, with a mix of satisfaction and disdain. “It would seem that I am not entirely forgotten in Broken.”

“Forgotten?”
the keeper echoes in wonder. “You are a
legend
in Broken—as is the panther you ride upon. Although it was not known until very lately that you traveled together.”

“‘Travel’—yes, and a good deal more,” Caliphestros answers. As Stasi turns her head from side to side, her unstoppable determination is suddenly confused by the many scents and increased cries of the beasts in the cells around her: cells that are lit only by long stone openings in the top of each wall that catch pieces of sunlight from barred openings in the base of the Stadium walls, as well as by the torches that burn in sconces outside each place of confinement. The former Second Minister of the realm tries to calm his mount as he attempts to gain more information from the keeper. “You say the rest of your ilk are gone. Yet why did
you
stay, if that be so?”

“The animals, my lord,” says the keeper. “They would have slowly starved. As it is, I have had difficulty procuring even spoilt meat to keep them alive.”

“And why take such pains to preserve what Kafra and his priests have long taught are mere beasts, to be used and abused as man might see fit?”

“Because, my lord,” the keeper responds, “savage as they may be, I have grown to know these creatures, a little, and to know what they have endured at the hands of Broken’s idle wealthy: young men and women who have used
me
ill as well, in my time. To simply leave them to die, especially the wretched death of want, would have been—
inhuman …
”

Caliphestros’s expression softens. “And so mercy finds its way even into this place. For that statement, jailer, you may leave with your life. But first, surrender your keys.”

The keeper gladly takes from his belt an iron ring which holds the many keys to the cells about them, and tosses it at Stasi’s feet. “Thank you, my lord,” he says, and then, before the “nefarious sorcerer” has a change of heart, he turns and flees.

Urging Stasi to bend and allow him to the ground, Caliphestros groans as he rolls to the hard floor, then immediately reaches into one of his sacks for several balls of his various medications, which he places in his mouth. He begins to chew vigorously, despite their bitter taste, that their effect may ease the pain of his trip through the city all the faster; and then he slips his walking apparatus from his back and straps it to his legs, beseeching he knows not what or whom to allow the powerful drugs he has eaten to take hold of his senses quickly. Once they have, he grasps one of the iron bars of the cells and tries to pull himself upright. The task is beyond his capabilities, however, and he is grateful when he feels Stasi’s muzzle, and behind it the force of her mighty neck, gently lift him upright. He places his crutches under his arms and, as he feels his medicines take full effect, he announces:

“Now, my constant one—let us find she that you have for so long dreamed of freeing and bringing home. And as we do so, let us free the rest of these unfortunates—although I would be grateful if you would prevent any one of them who mistakes our intentions from tearing out my throat …”

As the white panther and the man who walks like no other man the beasts have ever seen begin to move through the passageways between the cells, Caliphestros pauses to unlock each door; and he is happy, although not altogether surprised, to discover that each animal—wolf, wildcat, bear, and more—would rather make for the stairs and what they all obviously sense is freedom than they would kill such strange and unworthy prey as he must seem. Yet the liberating pair’s quest is peculiarly long: the cells are many in number, the terrible yet exhilarating sounds of the freed prisoners are confusing, and the pathway grows ever darker as they wind on and on through a maze of iron.

Finally, however, panther and man come to the last of the cells, and Stasi’s motions become ever more anxious and agitated. Within this last place of filthy imprisonment, Caliphestros can now see, paces she whom his companion has sought: a panther much like herself, if slightly smaller, far leaner, and displaying a far more golden coat, one that is smudged by the dirt of her cell. With all the other animals already departed, Caliphestros feels safe in allowing Stasi to approach the cell first as he stands unguarded to one side, observing yet another of the miracles of which his companion is, it seems, infinitely capable.

Stasi moves slowly to the bars: a strange slowness, when one considers the ardor and speed with which she made for the Stadium. But Caliphestros is not confused: for he knows her expressions by now, and there is an air of contrition about her face and movements, as she steps forward to put her nose between the shafts of iron, where it touches that of the younger panther within. As she moves to lick the muzzle of her long-lost child, that offspring at first snarls quietly, as if to ask, it seems to Caliphestros, why Stasi should have left her in the place of misery for so many years. Only when the white panther looks back at her human companion does he move forward upon his crutches and single wooden leg to unlock the door of the cell. Stasi quickly enters, enduring the two or three swipes of a strong paw that has been kept quick by Broken’s wealthy youth: actions that are clearly meant, not to genuinely injure, but to register deep anger at so long an abandonment. Stasi endures these motions without reaction, and then again moves forward to begin to lick the filth of the cell from her daughter’s fur. When the child has finally submitted, and begins to return what are, in her case, touches of affection with her own tongue, the feeling within the cage loses its momentary sense of unease; and before long, both panthers are purring with extraordinary volume.

Just how long this ritual goes on, Caliphestros cannot say: for his own sense of rapture, combined with the full effect of his medicines (augmented by a few sips from a wineskin that he has found hanging from a wall nearby) make time utterly irrelevant. Nevertheless, it is a delicate moment for the old man: for he does not yet know if the two reunited panthers will allow him into their company, or even if his own relationship to Stasi will remain unaffected by her discovery of the child to whom she has called, on so many evenings, from the mountainside far, far beyond the granite city.

Soon, however, Stasi does turn to Caliphestros, with an expression of utter kindness. Her daughter’s face, too, bears no trace of malice: in all likelihood, the old man realizes, because (as in the case of the other imprisoned animals) he is so utterly unlike any other human she has encountered during her long torment. Far from brandishing a whip or chain, Caliphestros does not even present legs; no man could be less threatening, he realizes, and for the first time in his life he finds himself, if not grateful to have lost his legs, at least momentarily relieved at his mutilated image. He is, as he has hoped he might, being asked to join mother and daughter: somehow Stasi has imparted to her child that he is to be accepted, perhaps even that he has made this reunion possible; and with a sense of reverence beyond anything he has ever known, the old man enters the cell and approaches the two panthers. Understanding fully when Stasi first nuzzles his face and then bends her front legs, indicating that he is to climb upon her back once more—showing her daughter both how they have survived and lived, for so many years, and that they must now leave this place that embodies the worst of human behavior before there is any new attempt to imprison them all—Caliphestros quickly removes his walking apparatus, again slips the three wooden pieces through the straps upon his back, and pulls himself onto Stasi’s shoulders. And, as he stares into the eyes of his companion’s daughter, he announces:

“And so, my two beauties, let us be done, altogether and at last, with the places and affairs of men …” The white panther appears to understand his meaning completely, and guides her child, first out of the cell, then toward the staircase down which she and her rider came. “Let us return your daughter to the Wood, Stasi,” Caliphestros continues, “and let us speak or think no more of this wretched, cruel place, or of the kingdom and such humans as would be capable of building it …”

With that, the three are upon their way, following the tracks of the other freed animals back toward the smashed portcullis and the Celestial Way beyond, which remains as empty as when they arrived. Their escape would seem assured; yet even so, Caliphestros knows that there is one task that both of his companions would gladly attend to, had they the opportunity. Freedom is certainly more important, at this moment, especially when it appears to be waiting without obstruction, but both mother and child glance about quickly, less in fear than out of seeming desire—

And Fate does not cast the panthers—to say nothing of their legless companion—among the foolish or the undeserving: not on this day, at any rate. On the contrary, it has decided at this moment to be kind (or that which ever passes for “kind,” when one speaks of Fate) to all three of the fleeing figures: for, just after they pass the open court before Broken’s High Temple, a group of men appear in the middle distance ahead of them. It is not a large group: one man in the center, who appears unarmed and wears a heavy black cloak, surrounded by three blood-soaked members of the Merchant Lord’s Guard, all of whom who hold their gory blades by their sides. The men look at the approaching rider and panthers with near disbelief; while Caliphestros, Stasi, and her newly freed daughter eye the men with a mix of challenge and satisfaction, as they draw to a sudden halt.

“I had heard you were in the city once more—and atop the white panther I once nearly killed,” calls the voice of Rendulic Baster-kin. “I must confess I did not credit the report—
why,
I wondered, if the great Caliphestros
had
managed to survive his punishment, would he return to Broken, merely to liberate a simple, vicious beast?”

Taking a moment to ensure that his response will be steady, Caliphestros calls out: “As to their viciousness, under the correct circumstances, I can certainly attest—as can you yourself, I have heard, Baster-kin.” The old man slides from Stasi’s lowered shoulders once again, even before he has had a chance to arrange his walking equipment. “But as to their simplicity,” he continues, while the panthers proceed to snarl, pace, and coil their powerful muscles. “I believe you will learn that they possess almost every quality, save that …”